Almanac 2010
Out now
For over 15 years, ArtAsiaPacific has tracked the shifting topography of contemporary art from Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East. In 2005, the magazine’s editors decided to produce a permanent record of the art scene in the countries and territories of our geographical footprint—both those basking in the limelight and others usually denied support and acknowledgment. AAP‘s Almanac 2010 refines the features of the four previous editions while building on the research and expertise that have made it an indispensable reference for the contemporary global art world.Since its debut, the Almanac has served the needs of artists, collectors, curators, scholars, auction specialists, private dealers and gallerists with its 67 detailed and lavishly illustrated country reports along with reviews of the year’s festivals, museum exhibitions, gallery shows, publications, art fairs and auctions. Almanac editor HG Masters and regional specialist co-editors Marisa Mazria-Katz, Megha Ralapati, Hanae Ko, Aliya de Tiesenhausen, Sara Raza and Dyer Cushman worked with a team of international correspondents and researchers to compile the key facts and figures about the art worlds of Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East in a single volume. The editorial team reached out to cultural ministries and foreign consulates, scrutinized websites and databases, and pored over archives, blogs and publications in English as well as European, Asian and Arabic languages. Simultaneously objective and passionate, far-reaching and focused, achieving the Almanac‘s goal—to celebrate and report on the art of the Asia-Pacific region—would be impossible without such research.
This year’s edition features essays by 12 influential figures reflecting on the past ten years of contemporary art. These include overviews of the year ahead by curators Edward Balassanian of the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art; Felicity Fenner of Sydney’s Ivan Dougherty Gallery; Yuko Hasegawa of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Eungie Joo of the New Museum in New York; and Berkeley-based independent curator Salwa Mikdadi. Pioneering gallerists Shireen Gandhy of Chemould Prescott Road; and Hu Fang of the forward-thinking Vitamin Creative Space. Maverick artists Fereydoun Ave from Tehran, Singapore’s Heman Chong and Karachi-based Naiza Khan take a more critical view of artistic developments since 2000. Australian collector John Kaldor, and Daravuth Ly, co-founder of the nonprofit cultural organization Reyum in Phnom Penh, explain their motivations for nurturing contemporary artists. Writing in the first person, with an open editorial brief, these exemplary regional portraits are as candid as they are insightful.
The Five Plus One section, in which the editors nominate five artists who have made a significant impact in 2009 and one who promises to do so in 2010, has been augmented in this edition by full-page commissioned artists’ portraits of the honorees, including Qiu Zhijie in his Beijing studio and Mona Hatoum installing her solo museum show in Vancouver as well as Ahmet Öğüt, the “plus One,” on the High Line in New York City. AAP‘s art director Joon Mo Kang and photo editor Alis Atwell have given the Almanac a crisp new look, presenting more information, more clearly, than previous editions. Up-to-date maps, timelines, statistics and over 300 images complement detailed reports on the art scene from Turkey to Tonga.
